If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Radiation in your green tea

hello all, amoung many types of tea, I like to drink japanese green sencha tea, not so much a fan of the macha. But with the radiation problem in Japan, does anyone know if there are tea plantations around the damaged nuclear power site? I often buy this brand of japanese tea which says its grown somewhere near the base of Mt. Fuji which is south of Tokyo. Hopefully there are no tea plantations close by to that site, otherwise buying Japnese tea might become iffy.

I think you'll be fine, everything that comes over is going to be swept for contamination at least a couple of times. The worst thing we could do now is abondon our Japense friends now by not buying from them, their economy just took a hugh hit, mind you I'm not saying that's what anyone is doing.

[B][U][FONT="Century Gothic"][SIZE="3"][/SIZE]Brian[/FONT][/U][/B]

[COLOR="blue"]A teaspoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down :001_tt2:[/COLOR]
[COLOR="green"][SIZE="3"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="4"]Be sure to visit THE NIB for all your pen and ink ADs.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[FONT="Century Gothic"][URL="http://www.info-komen.org/site/TR?pg=fund&fr_id=1120&pxfid=149874"][B][COLOR="Plum"][SIZE="3"]2011 Soap For Hope[/SIZE][/COLOR][/B][/URL][/FONT]

[iBrian] The worst thing we could do now is abondon our Japense friends now by not buying from them.

[grasshopper] Completely concur. Well said. Our friends at Yuuki Cha offer this information: "Regarding Parcel Screening – In order for you to get the correct information as to how your country is dealing with screening of parcels from Japan we strongly advice you to directly contact your countries Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (or equivalents in your country). For US customers, we can already inform you that all cargo, including international parcels, from Japan are now being screened to assure safety." I take this quotation from the Yuuki-Cha blog: http://www.yuuki-cha.com/blog/

We at Hibiki-an continue to do business under normal conditions. Kyoto is approximately 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, therefore the radiation does not reach here in Kyoto and is not detected. All of our merchandise ships from Kansai Airport near Kyoto.
The nuclear power plant affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami is in northeast Japan, north of Tokyo. Even in Tokyo, which is much closer to the nuclear power plant than Kyoto, the detected radioactivity level is minimal and not harmful at all. We are monitoring the situation very closely. Please see below for more information.

Understand your concern.
Japanese green tea cultivation require warm climate (Fukushima is northern Japan ). There are small farms about 200km away, however the Japanese green tea available in north America likely from other areas such as Shizuoka(500-600km away), Uji (850km) and Kyushu (1300km) so there are quite distances. You mentioned that tea is from near Mt. Fuji means the tea must be from Shizuoka. Mt. Fuji is in Shizuoka prefecture and Shizuoka is the biggest Japanese green tea producing center.

Each prefectures are close monitoring the air and water quality and all of teas leaving the country are monitored as well. So I personally can’t see any risk there and it seems to be rather mental.
I was burn and grew up in Japan and now live in North America; feel fortunate operating Japanese tea house here and enjoy what I do.
In earlier, we had inquiries whether to buying up big or.. we have plenty of stock so our customer can buy big and make stock for later if that make them feel safe though… Always our policy to provide what customers are looking for so we added special selections from southern island, Kyushu. The teas from Kyushu tends to be rich and can be bold. Kagoshima tea is not well known as much as Shizuoka tea, however the second biggest producing center and I personally like those teas from Kyushu. The area makes the taste different. So may be interesting to try out the differences.